in cavea
by Symmet
Summary: Souless Sam talks to Lucifer, who realizes the vessel is so little without Sam in it. "what is wrong with you"
1. percipio

The Cage is not a place. It is a thing.

It is alive, in the most drawn out, cut apart, defiled sense of the word.

It is not undead.

It is not sentient.

It is "alive".

It is aware of nothing, but everything it needs. It is not malicious, but it causes pain as it's general, default setting, it gains knowledge, but does not technically learn, does not use it outside of where it was deemed required. It most senses, it lacked creativity. More basically, it lacked a soul, or a Grace, or anything like it. It was not empty, but rather, had no place designated for such a thing. It was complete, and it had all it needed for it's sole purpose.

For it was built to house an archangel, and the only way to keep Lucifer from escaping was to tear at his being, distract him away from any attempts. It focused upon him and completed this task. It worked at his very essence.

Angels do not have souls.

But they have Grace.

And it functions in much the same ways.

The demons, long, long ago, had chipped at the Cage - when they knew where he was housed, before the cage made them lose the knowledge, for it can make unawareness of others, inflict it's own emptiness of thought and memory as well as any trauma - attempting to free their Prince.

They found that it did not change.

It is not well to say that the missing parts grew back, for that seems organic, and the Cage was not. It simply was. Automatic, unaffected by their peeling and hacking at the walls, it simply was new again. It did not regenerate, did not reincarnate. It was for a second a crack, a wound, a dent, and then it was gone. Should someone attempt to stick their arms in and keep ripping away, their arms would be forced out. Not shoved out, but squeezed out. As if suddenly the space they took was already occupied. The screams as soul was rendered and pressed out like pulp and splintered bone were foul and wretched, the first that true echoed in Hell. It was how they came to realize that the shards among their feet could cut a soul and maim it - though impermanently, in it's own way.

A soul is different from Grace, but while the Cage shredded minutely at Grace, and blackened it, after several thousand years (for Grace, but souls, not as resilient, not created to power Warriors Of God, were infinitely weaker in that regard), just as souls, tortured on end for decades, began to twist.

The shards could not cut away or inherently damage a soul - rather, emotional and painful procedures were adopted by the demons to make it easier for the Cage pieces to do their work - they could imperfectly warp the soul, the Grace, like forcing a ceramic to change after it was already placed in the kiln. It was slow, and irksome, but it could be done.

For their Prince it was an unavoidable, highly undesirable side effect of his prison, his Grace not beat upon, not bruised, but pushed at, like gravity, constantly pressed at, undoing perceived perfection. They, instead sought to bolster their ranks so that He may have had a glorious army upon His return. He would have truly hated them if He didn't care about human souls.

Even He could admit the souls were things of beauty (plain, next to grace), but when brightly new and untarnished, He could admit they were as most of His Father's creations had been - flawless.

Humans, themselves, once that soul matured and that weak body was added, were unsavory and nauseating. In part it was the losing of it's luster, the dimming of the soul that Lucifer found so abhorrent. A beautiful thing had been lessened, He believed, made into something violent and cruel and weak. For all the loss of innocence, it was still childish and unworthy of a place above His love for His Father.  
He could not watch them and look upon His Father and find them to be more.

He could not.

it was inconceivable.

The Cage was meant to know these things, and these things did it use. It drank up his sufferings and poured them back in, changing his Grace and therefore changing Him. He became Satan, though he did not accept the name in his Grace. It remembered Lucifer, for it was Grace, and could not become part of something other than it's Heavenly calling.

The Cage absorbed all his pains, and the pains that came too close to it's "walls" (it remembered the first demon to try to halt the return of it's completion, the severe agony that pulsated it's being and kept it deep in it's "memory", where it was never returned to, never used. ).  
It could put all the pain it knew of and put it in a vault and never would it put any of that pain upon Lucifer. He realized it didn't know to. It didn't know that they could be used. Or rather, it was not required. There was no reason to, so, like a kleptomaniac, it took all those memories of pain and kept them, for absolutely no purpose. The memories were not dissected, not analyzed, not learned from.  
They simply were.

When Sam dragged Lucifer and Michael, and even Adam back into the Cage, Lucifer despaired. He had not done so in a very long time, but he remembered the absence of color that permeated this place, and thought Sam had not understood what he was sacrificing himself for.


	2. paciscor

The Cage was not a place. It was a Thing. A living thing, in the poorest, most terribly misunderstood, unfortunate meaning of the word.

It could not learn in the sense of the word where it used it's knowledge outside of storing it, but it could do something unprecedented.

It could adapt.

It had been made with the ability because, of course, he was an ArchAngel, and his intellect and sheer power were immense. It had not been made with the ability to recreate itself when demons pulled at it.

It had allocated itself the ability (another show of it's inability to be creative. It did not do anything outside of adequately prepare itself. A selfish creature would have abused the power, but it lacked such qualities. It was without emotions or the drive of life. It had not foreseen a future in which there would be more than one occupant, more than one ArchAngel, in fact, because it did not ponder, it did not wonder or dream. It existed, and did little else).

Thus when two souls and two Graces came unto it, it adapted.

They were not allowed each others' company, of course, not as punishment, per se, but simply because the Cage could derive no conclusive reason to allow it. This was solitary confinement, after all.

Of course, it was not made to house two ArchAngel Graces, so while it contained them perfectly well, it was not perfectly maintained. Lucifer knew this because he could hear Michael's screams of anger, fear, horror.

For when the Cage had pressed upon his Grace, and pressed his pain back into him, it had of course, made him relive his fall. Of which his brother had had a paramount role. But even the Cage could not replicate the immediate knowing deep in his Grace - unstable thing that it was - when it heard his brother.

The phantoms the Cage created to syphon off his attention were almost perfect, of course, replicated from his memory, given life by his own mind. But such a thing could not be remade perfectly. Thus he knew, somehow, there was a flaw in the Cage, a glitch, for though it lived, it was much as a machine.

He did not hear anything of the souls. He pained for Sam even as he hated him.

His Grace ached to be in contact with his true vessel, and the brief succor he had been allowed now rotted and made it worse.

His closest understanding to the ache was as Sam's memories had been of demon blood - a rush, a thrill, an addiction.

He worried, against his own wishes, for the Cage was not accustomed to living human souls - those that belonged to demons were too alien and wretched for the Cage, and even then, it had not been made to house demons, either.

He knew the Cage might break the souls, for the emotional turmoil it up-heaved upon it's inhabitants was spectacular - after all, it was made to turn away the attentions of an ArchAngel. Two human souls would bend and deform under that grip. But he reckoned that he didn't care, for the soul should mean little to him - in fact, a body without a soul was perfect for an Angel, for it was the will of the soul that made them ask consent, and not use a body belonging to another being.

But the one true vessel was more than a vessel in some ways.

Sam was built to empathize and be empathized with by Lucifer.

Lucifer adored Sam for freeing him at the same time as planning his torture for dragging him back.

All the while remaining indifferent to his status and yet fervently wishing he could protect him.

Sam was his and he was Sam's.

Eventually Michael's screams died out, as he accepted what Lucifer had, long ago.

Lucifer had raged for about an hour after his own return, far more deadly and wrathful than all his old years combined.

But the physical powers of an ArchAngel were nothing to the Cage; it was slipping out and contacting the physical dimensions that they needed to be distracted from.

It had been a long time since he had walked through Hell, he remembered.

Not that he cared, now.

But before, for just an hour he had been a star again, brilliant and cold. He had not thought he could shine so bright again, and then he despaired, for the Cage could breed despair.

And then he flickered out and began to wonder what had happened to the others.

Lucifer knew the Cage had a sliver of conscious - not remotely close to a soul, but still. It could define cruelty and kindness, though it did not feel them, and at least seemed aware of how they worked, although it did not employ the latter.

It did, however, "reward" good behavior.

That was, if Lucifer submitted and did not attempt to slip his energies through, did not fight, then the visions would abate in intensity.  
They were never kind, of course.

But they dimmed to the point where he could ignore them completely, and sit in silence, and, as His Father had no doubt hoped, "repent" (He did not try in the slightest).

He found, remarkably, that he projected a corporeal form in the Cage, instead of pouring out his true self.  
More remarkable, still, was that it wasn't Sam, as it should have been.

It was the vessel that had eventually withered away and failed to contain him, Nicholas.

The difference between Demons possessing humans and Angels possessing humans was the amount of consciousness involved. Demons, once human souls but now tainted, effectively made them black out, shoving them out of the way where souls existed. Angel Grace was like adding live wires to water.

Immediately, Nicholas' soul had been wrapped in archangel grace. He, as most humans unfit as vessels, would last a few minutes, at most. Unlike Sam, he had suddenly become aware of all of Lucifer, all of his history pouring over Nicholas like electricity, eradicating his own memories, eventually causing the soul to shut down. After that point, if Lucifer left the body before it burnt out, it would have been akin a husk - a "vegetable" as people said. For it was like using a blunt, simple tool to do something with finesse - Sam's soul was altered to resist burning up, yes, but mostly, it was a thing of elegance and, laughably, grace. It was nothing to the core of the soul, merely the way it was shaped; it was like comparing a butter knife to an angel blade - one was simply unable to handle the purpose the other was built for.  
Immediately he wondered if the Cage would warp Sam's soul until it was unable to house his Grace. It worried him, and it was this that he used to convince himself he was not acting because he cared about Sam, simply because he did not want his true vessel to be destroyed.  
He wondered why he projected Nicholas, whose body had felt like trying to rest in the stifling confines of a tight rubber suit that he had tried to move about it, who had begun to waste away so quickly.

Lucifer detested rubber and plastic with a passion.

It truly was man made - it lasted far too long and killed most of the animals that encountered it.  
And most of it covered the planet as a universally agreed thing;

trash.

He remembered the exact moment Nicholas had regretted his decision.

Nicholas had not realized his mistake when he was thrust into the icy core of Lucifer, nor even when he recognized his own demise.

But Lucifer knew he had been highly depressed and close to suicide already.

He'd chosen him specifically for those reasons, of course.

Nicholas bared the brunt of Lucifer's lifespan with quiet reserve.

Only when he had reached half way through (and his own ability to think was starting to deteriorate at that point) did he suddenly emit an incredible wave of sadness.

Not for himself.

For Lucifer.

Lucifer runs his astral-projected hand over a "wall" (it doesn't really exist, but for lack of a better term), remembering how Nicholas had tried to wrap his soul around his Grace - a soul around Grace! Better yet, the Grace of an ArchAngel! - in an attempt to console Lucifer. It was one of the most repugnant, infuriating experiences Lucifer had ever encountered. A human trying to make him feel better. He would have screamed at Nicholas to stop, but the soul was already collapsing on its memories - he wouldn't know how to speak, much less comprehend language. Even language in the most beautiful tongue. Lucifer would have wrenched him off except he owed Nicholas for his body, and was never the less thankful for it.

And then Nicholas died.

Well, the consciousness that knew itself to be Nicholas died - all the memory and personality that made Nicholas died. The soul, itself simply broke. It continued existing, but it could no longer understand itself.

Lucifer had tucked it out of sight, because it had been human and being in a human body was already unfortunate enough. If he had to explain it, he'd simply felt he owed Nicholas that much. But it's presence was not unlike the Cage's unwavering familiarity. It unnerved him and repelled him and was a constant reminder of Humanity.


	3. pererro

He was careful in his slipping out. It was a terrible art to master, but he had had millennium to learn, to perfect it, for time in the Cage ceased to exist. It was an eternal moment.

The feeble minded would think that thus his time in the cage would have been a blip. An instant. Almost unidentifiable.

But Angels were created outside of time. They did not exist for a blip.

They were unchanged by time, unmoved by it's constant song. As such, they could cut into it, to distant years perfectly rendered in their memory if they had already passed by. Some, granted the powers of the Host, could even cut into a distant future, but this was seldom, for many futures could exist, could over-lap at once. It took an extreme amount of energy to travel there, and even then, one could not be sure that future was true.

Prophets of the Lord were valued for a reason.

The only thing you could count on existing now and then and soon was the Cage.

The Cage existed for infinitude.

There was no break, no escape from it. It was a constant moment. The Birth and Death of Time.

It was excruciating if you thought about it. As the hum of bees would crawl into a human's mind of flesh and drive them mad, so would a lesser Angel have been driven.

A lesser Angel Lucifer was not.

So he learned to ignore it, as one imperfectly ignores an itch in the mind. He learned to use it to his advantage.

He experimented, when he could, slipping out, to Hell, and occasionally with the aid of demons when he'd told them how, Earth.

The secret to slipping through was leaving his Grace behind.  
It was always an ordeal. Always a trial.

But for Sam, he could.

He could not slip into other parts of the Cage. It was a strange contraption, perfectly disallowing passage between cells. He could enter Hell, could even, with the aid of a ritual, visit Earth.

But even though he was likely within a mile radius of the human, He could not find Sam.

To Hell, then. But as what? As Satan?

No.

It was too soon for Him, and likely too soon for them, as well.

So he became undone, separate from his Grace, and allowed himself to drift aimlessly until the emptiness of the Cage receded and was replaced with the brash, crude, violent aura of Hell.

He was a whisper, appearing as a flimsy shred of soul. Any lesser and he would be unable to control where he went. Any more and he would attract attention.

He could have chosen to appear all powerful, as he once had, but the denizens of Hell were not likely to speak gladly of Sam. Or attempt to get him out.

And Lucifer needed to know if Sam was alright.

He hadn't really known how he would manage to find out; the Cage was presumably undiscoverable to any one creature in Hell or any dimension other (besides His Father, or perhaps some other, omnipotent being). There was no way He could convince a demon to carry out the spell to make it otherwise without revealing Himself.

But He floated on, outside the drone of the Cage, glad to be away, to think. He wondered if the demons celebrated the capture of Michael. If they were glad Sam had been taken, too, and that his brother was now no doubt broken, having lost what little was left of his family.

But he heard otherwise.

There, amongst not the screams of fresh souls or the ruined cries of the long suffering, but the silence of terror, did he hear it.

If He had not hated demons, He might have been touched by their continued reverence of him.

They did not care about Michael.

But they did care about Sam.

Specifically because Sam was not as unreachable as Lucifer had thought.

Sam had been resurrected.

By Crowely.

Lucifer fought conflicting emotions.  
Sam was alive. And currently unmolested by the Cage. He was free of any warping to his soul, that he could breath and live and keep his brother, no matter how insufferable Dean was to Lucifer, his own love of Sam made it so.

Because of Crowely.

Every basest instinct within Him raged at that. That Crowely dare. That any demon dare. Sam Winchester was His, and His alone.

Let no one other raise him but his blundering and loving brother.

Lucifer was relieved beyond words, of any language, ancient or new, Enochian or flawed.  
He was incandescent beyond thought, beyond conception, beyond simple, mindless fury.

No, a primordial fury.

The new King of Hell would be extinguished by it's Prince.

His Wrath had no bounds, even the Cage could not contain His rage.

But Sam was alive.

Sam was out of the Cage.

Sam was Free.


	4. possidendi

Lucifer returned to the Cage to bid his time.

He would leave again when he was able - wreck and wring out that wretched creature, Crowley. None had the right to free Sam from Hell as Lucifer did. Despite the fact that Sam had pulled him back in, he would never forget that Sam had manumitted him in the first place.

Never.

So he claimed Sam as his own, for if Sam should liberate him from Hell and then imprison him again, he should be the only one able to return the favor. No one else could offer salvation to Sam; no one else could pass judgement upon him. It was just as Lucifer accepted Sam to be for him.

He overlooked Sam going to Heaven because he could not reach Sam there, although, if Sam's soul had been kept there, he would have ripped Heaven asunder. Any who attempted to hinder him obliterated, cast aside in his search, making him rend their Grace from reality, destroy that which was not tied to flesh but still very destructible before an ArchAngel's wrath.

He missed Sam, although he was unsure as to whether the affections were shared. At least a mutual sort of hatred permeated their bond. It was actually very upsetting for Lucifer. Would he eventually feel this way about everyone he loved? He loved his Father, still, despite his best efforts to forsake that love, and though he no longer obeyed, there was an inherent and undeniable love of God in the very whispers of his Grace, for the first purpose of Angels is to love God. To rid himself of that would be to rid himself of his Grace, a defining entirety of him. Also necessary for being condescending if he wanted to speak such ugly things of humanity. It was the same, too, with Michael. No matter his agonies and sadness at his brother's betrayal, there would always be a love untestable by even being cast out, for Michael was always his brother, regardless of what order his relationship to Michael took on - enemy before brother, it seemed. And now, Sam. He had expected that since he and Sam were essentially of the same quintessential core, they would be completed by each other, that he could trust Sam as he could himself. Every lie, every truth, every secret, every wish. But it seemed Lucifer had felt betrayed even by himself. He had struggled against his pride, of course. There was more to be gained from admitting rather than ignoring. He had vainly contemplated bowing. But he had found he couldn't make his vessel move, could not bow, not when he had seen the face of God and knew what true beauty was, he could not look at humans as anything more than half thought dreams. No doubt Sam still blamed himself for freeing Lucifer, too. As it was, a certain level of self loathing was evident in both parties, and therefore, a certain amount of general loathing. If he was to Sam and Sam was to him and he felt betrayed by Sam, it followed that he felt betrayed by himself, and vice versa for Sam.

It really just seemed that he would fail to have a stable relationship with someone without a little bit of anger.

He missed Sam. Being complete after existing alone and broken so long had been like dancing among the pinwheels of fireworks, it sparked and fizzed and washed over him and made him ache in the darkness that receded when he thought of Sam.

It wasn't fair, either, to forgive Sam, but finally, it seemed being tied to the wants and whims of a human had caught up with him and rather harshly disallowed any true contempt if he wasn't trying hard enough. The longer he spent thinking of Sam, the more he began to forgive him.

So he did not think of Sam.

Just as he had once refused to think of God, of Michael.

Lucifer realized quite by accident that the key to hating Sam lay not in anger, but in pain. The betrayal was always going to shock Lucifer, it seemed. So many he held absolute faith in failed him, again and again. When would he learn? But a certain sort of desperate envy rose up in him, for Sam had kept the love (if suspicion) of his father, and still had his brother. Until Sam had lost those things, he would never be Lucifer's. His soul was undeserving, though his body as a vessel was exact. And he then began to hate, for a resentment that was oil and black curled in his Grace at the thought of Sam walking above, no repercussions for the undoing of fate, whole and free.

And in the Cage, the memories halted, and then rewound. For Lucifer's priorities had changed.

He wished to conquer humanity second; and punish Sam Winchester first.

And so here the Cage failed, for it did not comprehend emotions as others would. Because Lucifer's hatred was tied to his pain, and as the Cage used pain to distract him, it began to recede from his more primordial memories, and focus instead on his newly acquired ones.

Of Sam.

To remind him and from there let fester a quiet rage that was as a white dwarf, immense and silent and seeming far away, bright but distant.

And Lucifer rewatched and relived and remembered. And then the Cage would play it all again.


End file.
